Foley misused the powers entrusted to him by voters. The Republican leadership ignored pleas for help and put partisan politics ahead of the well-being of the kids employed to work as congressional pages - even as they declared themselves to be noble defenders of family values. In a democracy, victims have the power to make their voices heard and voters have the chance to decide for themselves whether such abuse of power and hypocrisy are acceptable or not.

By this standard, Asia flunks the democracy test. Sex scandals are a rarity in this part of the world. Is that because Asian politicians are inherently more chaste? Is it because Asian publics take a more liberal, enlightened view of sexual indiscretions? Maybe. But the more likely explanation is simply that Asia is less democratic. It's no accident that the one nation in which a sex scandal forced out a ruling party is Japan, arguably the most representative of Asia's democracies. In 1989 Prime Minister Sosuke Uno's arrogant handling of a geisha with whom he had had a relationship, galvanized women voters to stand up and oust the ruling Liberal Democratic Party from power in the Upper House Elections. Voters don't have the luxury of obsessing about sex and abuse of power in countries where the potential victims of those abuses lack a political voice.